The Fat Film Guyhttps://thefatfilmguy.com
But hey, what do I know, Im fatTue, 24 Oct 2017 16:58:46 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3An old fat man and a young skinny dude asking each other questions about movies, video games, television, comic books and life ... but mostly movies, video games, television and comic booksThe Fat Film GuycleanThe Fat Film Guythefatfilmguy@gmail.comthefatfilmguy@gmail.com (The Fat Film Guy)Presented by TheFatFilmGuy.comThe Fat Film Guyhttps://thefatfilmguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/podcast-logo-1.jpghttps://thefatfilmguy.com
REVIEW – Only The Brave – Why We Go To The Movieshttps://thefatfilmguy.com/2017/10/24/review-only-the-brave-why-we-go-to-the-movies/
Tue, 24 Oct 2017 16:58:28 +0000https://thefatfilmguy.com/?p=550Like most romantic notions, the long held romantic ideal of seeing a movie in a darkened cinema and feeling the collective wave of emotion and discovery, to feel the power of a shared journey with strangers, rarely lives up to those lofty expectations. More often the strangers you are sharing your journey with aren’t enhancing your experience, they are ruining it. The two college kids who wont turn off their phones two rows in front of you, the old man sitting next to you whose chewing popcorn at a volume level you didn’t know was possible, the bored children whose parents are having to try to keep quiet and the couple in the row behind you that feel compelled to comment on every scene to each other in something much louder than a whisper, these are not people sharing a journey with me and they certainly aren’t enhancing it. Don’t misunderstand me, I still love going to the movies, getting popcorn, sitting back and getting engulfed in a giant screen is still really cool to me but the “seeing it in a room full of strangers”, which people often cite as one of the huge plusses for goingto the movies, is less and less often a positive; a truth, given the ever shrinking attendance numbers for films, that seems to resonates with many …

Until it doesn’t

There are a lot of things one could talk about when reviewing Only The Brave, Joseph Kosinski’s gripping movie about the Granite Mountain Hot Shots (if you don’t know their story, which was well covered in the news a few years back, feel free to look it up before you go, knowing wont spoil it). The cast is amazing, particularly Josh Brolin, Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Connelly who really should be in Oscar contention as Best Supporting Actress, the movie is shot smartly with a great sense of realism that doesn’t try to make the fire something its not or romanticize the men to the point that they feel more like archetypes than people. But here is the only review that I think could do the movie justice, at the end of the film the theater, which was quite full, was silent. As the credits rolled and showed the photos of the actual men no one stood to leave, no one began talking, everyone in the theater sat in complete silence and watched. When the credits were done you could hear a few people say “wow” in a half whisper and then we all filed out. I have seen a lot of movies, good ones, great ones and some real stinkers too, but I cannot recall the last time I went to a film that moved an audience to silence by simply (although there is obviously nothing simpleabout it) relating the depth of sacrifice and tragedy of the loss of those men.

Hollywood will forever be trying to find reasons to get us to go to the movies instead of watching on our big screens in the comfort of our own homes or even on a laptop with noise canceling headphones; bigger screens, reclining seats, better sound.But those technological advancements are in a dog race with the advancements of your home and honestly I think the home is winning. Here is a movie that gives you the real reason to go to a theater, silence when you are alone doesn’t say much, silence when you are in a room with 150 strangers is louder than any IMAX DOLBY Sound System could ever be.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I have found in doing this little exercise is how many great movies don’t adhere to my internal rules of ranking movies. Rocky III is a perfect example of this. I have long believed that the first film in a franchise has a much harder job to do than any of the movies that follow and is generally the only movie in a franchise that truly stands on its own. Given that, I will generally move the first film up on any given list if the quality is close. In other words, give me Toy Story over Toy Story 2, give me Alien over Aliens (there is another obvious example but it will get spoiled later so I’ll just leave you guessing for now). So why is Rocky III above Rocky, and by one spot no less? Here’s why, all of that heavy lifting that the first movie in a franchise has to do, Rocky III does as much of that as Rocky, maybe more. Everything about Rocky changes in Rocky III, including the physique of Sylvester Stallone. The fighting changes in Rocky III, from at least attempting to look like real boxing to boxing as professional wrestling (I have watched fights my whole life and guess what, no one gets lifted off the ground from an upper-cut, no one gets thrown into a corner and you cant overtly pin a dudes arm down while you punch him). In short, Rocky and Rocky II are gritty, semi-realistic, movies. Rocky III (and Rocky IV and Rocky V) exist in a different universe, a universe where we are supposed to believe that Sly Stallone could ever beat Carl Weathers in a foot race on the beach, where Clubber Lang looses one fight and is never heard from again. Obviously, I love the hyper-real universe of Rocky III, even, albeit only slightly, more than the original world of Rocky. But mostly I am just glad they both exist.

#69 The Duelists (1977)

Ridley Scott’s tale of revenge and honor in Napoleon’s France based on a Joseph Conrad novel is, well, let’s be honest, there’s a better than good chance you haven’t ever heard of this movie, let alone seen it. Having said that, I don’t know many people who have seen it that didn’t love it. Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine are both amazing and Scott scoured France to find authentic locals making the movie look amazing, the fight choreography is terrific and the movie both makes you understand what drives the men to keep dueling while at the same time acknowledging the absurdity and pointlessness of it. Add to all of the a Forest Gump-esque trip through one of the most fascinating slices of history the world has ever known and you have a great movie.

#68 Belle Epoque (1992)

I have seen every movie on this list at least 5x and most more than 10x (some many more than that), all but one. I have seen Belle Epoqueonce, during its original art house run, in a beautiful old theater in Corona del Mar, a small beach town in between Laguna Beach and Newport Beach. I’ve had plenty of chances to see it again, but I don’t want to. When I walked out of that theater, all those years ago, I remember saying to my buddy, a fellow firm nerd, “that was my favorite movie going experience ever.” Why? I have no idea. The movie was gorgeous, sexy in the most innocent way, and the kind of film that truly transports you to a time and place. It was funny and lovely and touching and a surprise. Belle Epoque isn’t a movie that forces you to examine questions of a deep philosophical nature or truly confront some social injustice of history or takes a hard look at the ugly side of humanity. It did not reveal any truth to me that I was unaware of. It was just, perfect and if I ever see it again I don’t know that it could ever live up to that perfection. Which is why it is on here. To me, Belle Epoque represents the unique beauty of film as both art form and artistic experience, the singular experience of film that is about time and place and a hundred factors that you are unaware of that can make a wonderful film a singular experience in your life. So, I will never see Belle Epoqueagain, but even if I live another 50 years and go through this exercise again when I am 100 Belle Epoque will have a place on it.

#67 Brining Up Baby (1938)

Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. The following sentence works equally well in describing either of them, they always had chemistry on screen with whomever their costars were. Think about how rare that is? How many movies have you watched and just never bought the two leads as anything other than two actors pretending to be in a relationship with one another. You never experience that with Grant or Hepburn. You just buy it. It doesn’t matter if it was Spencer Tracy or Jimmy Stewart or Humphrey Bogart or Grace Kelly or Sofia Loren or Ingrid Bergman or anyone. That undefinable necessity that is chemistry was simply a given if Cary Grant or Katherine Hepburn was in your movie. Even when they are playing decidedly un-Grant or Hepburn roles. Cary Grant plays a nerdy paleontologist and Hepburn plays, well, frankly, a crazy person. Bringing Up Babyis an absurd farce, with a lot of physical humor and a kind of mania that I don’t think would work if someone tried to make it today, but man does it work here, mostly because, you know, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

#66 Up (2009)

Everyone talks about the beginning. That montage of a life loved and lived. That’s the tear jerking part, the part that gets everyone and finds its way onto every list of the scenes that make you cry. I get it, it gets me too, but it isn’t the part that kills me. When we went to the theater, me, my wife and our son who would have been 5 at the time, and we were sitting in the dark and Mr. Frederickson (voiced brilliantly by Ed Asner) has sent everyone away and he’s sitting alone in his house and he finds the photo book, and he flips to the end and sees the note written by his late wife “Thanks for the adventure, now go have a new one”, honestly, just writing it makes me cry. In that theater that night my wife was moved by that scene but then she looked at her husband nearly blubbering in tears and I kind of ruined the moment for her, she just started laughing at me. Anyway, how UP, a movie about an old man who flies his house to a rainforest using balloons, ever got made is dumbfounding. The fact that it is amazing is, well, amazing.

#65 Double Indemnity (1944)

Double Indemnitywas Billy Wilder’s first hit. If the name Billy Wilder doesn’t mean much to you then I guess I should say Sunset Blvd., Stalag 17, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Witness for the Prosecution and The Seven Year Itch (and a bunch of other movies, but you get the point). In other words, Billy Wilder is on a short list with Hitchcock and Capra and a few others as the best pre-1970’s director. He wrote Double Indemnity too, with Raymond Chandler (I don’t have to do the same thing with Chandler do I? Let’s just say that the hard-boiled P.I. working with the femme fatale, he is kind of the father of those stories). Anyway, Double Indemnity is a classic noir tale of an insurance salesman falling for the wife of one of his clients and things go wrong from there. Stanwyck is at her zenith, MacMurray, who went on to star in a bunch of early disney movies including The Shaggy Dog and The Absent Minded Professor and even more famously to people of a certain generation became the dad on My Three Sons, is perfect as the insurance salesman who finds himself tumbling deeper and deeper down a hole of his own making. Double Indemnity is considered a true classic and has absolutely earned that title.

#64 The Fabulous Baker Boys

For many years I wanted to be like Jeff Bridges’ Jack Baker. He just seemed so cool, a gifted artist doing gigs that required next to nothing from him, a man who had lost all zeal for life and had become an apathetic chain smoker. Who wouldn’t want to be like that? Or maybe I wanted to be Jack Baker because any man who could seduce Michelle Pfeiffer’s Susie Diamond had to be the coolest human alive. The movie actually hangs itself on this ideal. We are supposed to think Jack Baker is the coolest man alive (think Ryan Gossling from La La Land but with none of the patronizing “you must love jazz” stuff) and Susie Diamond is his female equivalent. Yes, they are both total trainwrecks, but they are cool, as is this movie. I mean, just watch this performance of Makin’ Whoopee and you’ll see what I mean.

#63 Stripes (1981)

So, if you were a high school student in the early 1980’s your comedy references were predominantly tied to three movies; Animal House, Caddyshackand Stripes. Sure, some of us would add Airplane! and The Blues Brothers and a little later 48 Hrs., Trading Places and Ghostbusters all had their day in the sun, but in 1982 quotes and references from Animal House, Caddyshackand Stripes were effectively a second language that you were simply required to know, so that when one of your buddies through a “lighten up francis” or “chicks dig me because I rarely wear underwear and when I do its usually something unusual” or “its Czechoslovakia, its like going to Wisconsin” or, well, I could go on and on because the whole movie is quotable, and hysterical and pretty darn near perfect…

“Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end? … No one cried when Old Yeller got shot? … I cried my eyes out.”

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

#62 Reservoir Dogs (1992)

If we had only known. In 1992 we did not know that Reservoir Dogs was the start of something that would change cinema, probably forever, but certainly for the next 20 years. The dialogue, the 1970’s chic, the pop culture references, movies made for people who were raised on Shaft and Foxy Brown and the original Gone in 60 Seconds, Tarantino changed the way movies were made, but none of us knew that at the time. All we knew was Reservoir Dogs was tense and hysterical and disturbing and expertly constructed, we didn’t realize what was about to happen.

Fair warning, the clip is as R rated as the movie.

#61 The Raid: Redemption

A SWAT team in Jakarta gets trapped in an apartment building raid. Surrounded by literally floors of gang members and drug dealers there only way out is to fight, floor by floor. You’ve heard movies claim to be ‘wall to wall action’ or ‘a non-stop thrill ride’, but they rarely are, in fact the usually shouldn’t be. Story needs exposition, action needs set-up. This movie is absolutely ‘wall to wall’ action. The fighting starts almost immediately and once it starts it doesn’t end until the end of the movie, but the plot actually requires that. The tension comes from the seemingly endless wave, it comes from bad guys being behind every door, blocking every exit. They must fight, constantly, to find a way out making that constant fighting not a thing that propels a plot, it is the plot.

I had a teacher, forever ago, that used to say (well, maybe she still says it, honestly how would I know) that a novelists second novel is often their best novel. I believe the entire basis of this assertion was based on Pride and Prejudice being Jane Austin’s second novel, but it did make me wonder if there is any truth to that with directors. I mean, intuitively it makes some sense. Film #1 you are learning, making mistakes, figuring stuff out; by film #2 you are more self assured, have a steadier hand, and haven’t had all the artistic passion sucked out of you. Or so goes the theory. Here are some of the #2 films from the all time great directors: Hitchcock The Mountain Eagle (1926), Coppola Tonight For Sure (1962) (even I haven’t heard of that one), Scorsese Boxcar Bertha (1972) (getting a little bit warmer), Spielberg Jaws (1975) (now we are getting somewhere), Cameron Terminator (1984) (keep it up), Tarantino Pulp Fiction (1994). Okay, those last three look pretty good. I could also have pointed out that Edgar Wright’s second movie was Shaun of the Dead (2004) or Nolan’s second movie was Memento (2000) or, most critically for this discussion, that Snatch was the second film from Guy Ritchie. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a good bit of fun, but Snatch kicked everything up a whole bunch of notches. Sure we remember Brad Pitt’s performance, which is amazing, and that this was a bit of an introduction to the world for Jason Statham, who is also great, but how about Lennie James as Sol, the pawn shop owner who finds himself in over his head right quick, or Alan Ford as the biggest of big bads Brick Top who memorably teaches us all why you should be fearful of pig farmers? Benicio Del Toro as Franky Four Fingers, Vinnie Jones as Bullet-Tooth Tony, Rade Serbedzija (you know who he is, you’ve just never known his name) as Boris the Blade the list goes on and on. And it isn’t just the performances, Ritchie builds a plot with a lot of moving parts that still feels clear (quite impressive). It is fitting that Ritchie’s first name is guy because this is very much a guys movie about guys acting like guys doing guy things for guy reasons (you might have noticed there were no women in my little listing of performances), but I guess I must be a guy (hey, wait, I am a guy, the fat film guy, see what I did there?) because I love every bloody second of this picture.

#79 The Incredibles (2004)

Hey, what do you know, Brad Bird’s second movie. I’d love to say I planned that but this was simply a beautiful accident. Anyway, I have found a kind of odd thing about The Incredibles, on lists of the best Pixar movies it seems to tumble a little further than it should, but on lists of best superhero movies, well, it gets pretty close to the top. Sure, you can say The Incredibles is little more than a family friendly version of Watchmen (not quite true, but certainly has some of the same beats, particularly in the set up), but that is dismissing the thing that really separates the film. If you want to know the movie list that The Incredibles should sit atop it is middle-life crisis movies. What movie better shows the drudgery of middle-aged life, when you are stuck in a job that doesn’t fulfill you, with a boss you hate and the pressures of a family making you feel trapped. What movie better illustrates how that middle-aged disappointment impacts the people around you, makes their lives lifeless and grey because they feel that emanating from the protagonist. More importantly, what movie better illustrates that your happiness and passion isn’t as much about your job or boss or what life hasn’t given you or even what you have lost, its about finding joy in what you have. Honestly, it sounds trite when you type it, but maybe more than any Pixar movie this is a film about being “past your prime” and how you deal with that, and it is better at showing that than any other film.

#78 Se7en (1995)

Alright, now this is kind of freaking me out because I honestly had no idea when I made this list, or when I rambled on about Snatch, that I was going to go three in a row. Yup, David Fincher’s second movie is Se7en. It is like we have entered the twilight zone. Anyway, “what’s in the box? what’s in the f***ing box?!” Honestly, I really shouldn’t say anything else. Honestly, I’m not going to say anything else.

P.S. Don’t watch the clip unless you want to know what’s in the box. Or, maybe, don’t watch unless you already know what’s in the box.

#77 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Few, finally we get to a movie that isn’t the directors second film. My film professor in school argued, quite vehemently, that this was not a good movie. To him it was a narrative mess, an almost text book example of how not to structure your three acts, and he couldn’t understand how it became a success. Craziest part of that story, he was buddies with Redford and actually showed us behind the scenes footage of Redford and Newman joking around on the set. Anyway, my professor at once wasn’t wrong and yet missed the whole point. Butch and Sundance is not a narrative, not in any classic sense, it is a handful of stories strung together and only feels like a narrative because the first story and the last story feel like a beginning and an ending. What Butch and Sundance is is a movie star movie; it is Redford being his best Redford and Newman being his best Newman and the chemistry the two of them shared in full wattage, and honestly, that is kind of all you needed. The Sting may be a better plot with a tighter narrative and so on and so on, but nothing is quite as fun as watching Butch and Sundance … AND this is one of the best endings ever!

#76 Leon: The Professional (1994)

We always talk about Shawshank and Pulp Fiction when we argue for 1994 being the greatest year in the history of movies, but we forget The Professional too often in that conversation. Young Natalie Portman, Jean Reno being introduced to American audiences, Gary Oldman being the craziest Gary Oldman you have ever seen. The Professional was Luc Besson’s follow up to the huge success of Le Femme Nikita (and The Big Blue which I cannot recommend highly enough) and it fit perfectly into the cinema of the moment that was the mid 1990’s. Leon is, and not in the least bit creepy way, a rom com between a socially stunted hitman and a 12 year old girl built into an action movie about corrupt cops. How many people could pull that off?

#75 Bull Durham (1988)

You know, I have noticed that this list is kind of bunched in a way. I didn’t mean to do it that way, and there are certainly exceptions in each batch of 10 I have written so far, but still it kind of seems to be there. Like our list so far, forget the second movie things (which was honestly freaky), Snatch, Se7en, Butch and Sundance, The Professional, now Bull Durham, this is like a guy movie night when we put in all the flicks are wives have no interest in watching. Sure, we have The Incredibles in there (a movie about a middle aged man who almost looses his family) but, man, I think of myself as a more enlightened film watcher and lover. Anyway, I suppose I just need to own it. Hello, my name is Rob, and I like guy movies. Okay, now I feel better. Here is a better written thing than I could ever do debating what kind of a movie Bull Durham really is (kind of amazing the Grantland article still pops up). Whatever it is, it works.

Oh, and the guy that hits the home run in this clip, I played high school football with him, so that’s cool, right?

#74 Notorious (1946)

Ingrid Bergman and Claude Raines star a movie about intrigue surrounding WWII, I know what your thinking, we did this movie 10 spots ago at #84 and its name was Casablanca. Sorry, nope, this is the better movie starring Ingrid Bergman and Claude Raines … you get the point. Notorious really shows off one of Hitchcock’s greatest talents, he can ratchet up the intensity without having to speed up the plot. Normally the suspense and intensity of a movie is driven by a plot picking up speed, like a rock rolling down a hill, but Hitchcock can do it with almost nothing happening, in fact he uses stillness to greater edge of your seat suspense than most can get through action. Also, this movie has the famous for the longest, and what some call the sexiest, kiss in movie history. As the story goes the Production Code (kind of like MPAA today, but much more strict) at the time had a strict limit on the length a kiss on screen could be, 3 seconds. So, Hitchcock has Grant and Bergman break lip contact, although only barely, every 3 seconds and so on and so on for 2 1/2 minutes. It really is kind of amazing, which is why it is the clip attached below.

#73 The French Connection (1971)

It is interesting what movies stay at the forefront of the collective consciousness and which ones seem to drift away. If you ask people to rattle off what iconic movies they remember from the 1970’s you’ll get The Godfather and Jaws and Rocky and Taxi Driver and Star Wars, maybe you’ll get a Deer Hunter, a Chinatown, the occasional Apocalypse Now (yes, all of those movies are in my top 100), but The French Connection, almost never. Which is strange because in the 1970’s it would have absolutely been one of the first handful mentioned right out of the gate. Jimmy Doyle’s car chase scene alone would get you there. But, for whatever reason, maybe because it was very much a movie of its moment, it hasn’t stayed in the forefront of our collected memories, but it should. It really, really should.

#72 Once Upon A Time in the West (1968)

I have a new theory about movie reviews. I believe the reviewer should have to say, right up front, whether or not they are fans of the kind of movie the movie they are reviewing is. If you didn’t like any Transformers movies I don’t need to hear you tell me you didn’t like the last Transformers. If you don’t like comic book movies I don’t need to hear your take on Spiderman: Homecoming. And the opposite is equally true, if you LOVE Marvel movies tell me up front so I understand the bias you are coming at the movie from. As this list will demonstrate, I love spaghetti westerns. Wait, that’s not true, I love Sergio Leone westerns. Granted, just about ever spaghetti western you have heard of was director by the Italian master filmmaker, but still I feel like the differentiation should be noted. Once Upon A Time in the West is kind of an interesting one because it seems to ebb and flow out of the cable TV western rotation. The Good The Bad and the Ugly is always going to pop up on TNT or AMC a few weekends a year, same with A Fistful of Dollars and True Grit and The Outlaw Josey Wales. Once Upon A Time in the West is one of the movies you see pop up every 5 or 6 years, it seems like, and then they will play it a bunch for a few months, and then it will be gone again. Which is odd only insofar as it kind of has the most classic plot of all of them. As the title suggests Leone really set out to make the quintessential western, filmed in Monument Valley, dealing with the railroad and the collision of industry with the lawlessness of the wild west, it has very bad bad guys (Henry Fonda is amazing as the baddest bad guy, famously killing a young boy in his introductory scene which was kind of a mind-blowing thing to see from an iconic actor like Fonda, watch the clip below to see what I mean), only slightly better good guys (Jason Robards’ Cheyene is perhaps my favorite character in any western ever made), and a woman, who is far from helpless, caught in the middle (Claudia Cardinale who makes her case quite convincingly as the most beautiful actress who ever lived in this movie).

#71 Rocky (1976)

I have heard and read and listened to debates ever since Creed came out in 2015 about whether or not Rocky holds up. The closest thing to a consensus seems to be that it absolutely holds up for those who loved it when they were kids but maybe doesn’t hold up as well to kids today who have been raised on movies that are simply paced differently. That sounds right, probably, I suppose, and is something one could likely say about roughly 75 or 80 of my top 100 movies, so obviously it doesn’t mean much to me. I still love Rocky. I love “cut me Mick” and “Yo, Adrian” and I really want to “eat lightnin’ and crap thunder” every time I watch it.

#90 The Longest Yard (1974)

It is easy to forget (and I am sure if you are under a certain age you just wouldn’t know) that Burt Reynolds was THE biggest movie star in the 1970’s. Not Pacino, not DeNiro, not Niklaus, not Eastwood (although he had the strongest argument), Burt Reynolds was the star of stars. Some of his stuff hasn’t held up as well, perhaps that’s why the brightness of his star is often forgotten, but The Longest Yard is as good today as it was when I was 8. A perfect example of the right star in the right movie at the right time in his career. The Longest Yard is hysterically funny, oddly moving and has some of the best football scenes ever in movies. The football is so good because (as they did with the remake) they cast a bunch of actual NFL players, but unlike the remake, or really just about any other sports movie, the star could literally hold his own. Burt Reynolds was a college football star at Florida State University who might have gone to the NFL if not for a catastrophic knee injury. His legitimate athleticism is on full display and it really makes a big difference.

#89 Some Like It Hot (1959)

The American Film Institute (AFI) ranks Some Like It Hot as the #1 comedy of all time and is their #22 movie of all time. It would be hard, maybe almost impossible, to find a “greatest movies” list that didn’t have Some Like It Hot. Along with Citizen Kane and Casablanca and The Godfather and a few others, Some Like It Hot is the kind of movie that people reflexively put on their list because not having it on there invalidates the whole thing. It would be like not putting Kareem Abdul Jabbar on a list of greatest NBA players or Stan Musial off your list of baseball greats. But here’s the thing, like Kareem and Stan, Some Like It Hot has earned that honor. It flat out is one of the funniest and best movies ever made, period. Quite frankly, I am surprised how low it ended up on my list, but being in the 80’s says more about my taste and how much I love the other movies than it is any slight to this Billy Wilder classic.

#88 Rebecca (1940)

There are a handful of things Hitchcock simply did better than any director before or since. Near the top of that list is dealing with obsession, particularly a man’s obsession with a woman, and how we should or shouldn’t judge that obsession. Laurence Olivier’s Maxim de Winter is obsessed with his deceased wife. Joan Fontaine, Max’s new, young bride, has to confront Max’s obsession, the reasons for it, and decide how that will change how she feels about her husband. This being Hitchcock it is never that simple and there are murders and mysteries and everything else, but ultimately, like Vertigo and Psycho, Rebecca is about how our obsessions of the past can hinder our present and our future.

#87 The Conversation (1974)

Another 1974 classic! Coppola’s too often forgotten masterpiece The Conversation in a lot of ways in Coppola’s take on Hitchcock (didn’t plan on putting The Conversation next to a Hitchcock movie to make this point but sometimes we get lucky). This isn’t a big, sprawling, epic, it is a little movie about a paranoid surveillance expert who begins to fear the people he has been paid to listen to may be murdered. Gene Hackman is brilliant as the nearly agoraphobic lead who has to decide if he should leave the safety of his tightly constructed life or be a bystander to something awful.

#86 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

“There’s no earthy way of knowing/Which direction they are going … There’s no knowing where they’re rowing … Or which way the river’s flowing … Is it raining is it snowing?/Is a hurricane a blowing? … Not a speck of light is showing/So the danger must be growing … Are the fires of Hell a-glowing?/Is the grisly reaper mowing?/Yes! The danger must be growing/’Cause the rowers keep on rowing/And they certainly are not showing/Any signs that they are slowing!”

A dark horse candidate for the most quoted movie for people over 45 (Caddyshack, Animal House, Airplane, Stripes, Forest Gump, Goodfellas, would be the other nominees off the top of my head) the genius of Gene Wilder is in full display (absurd he wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award or that this movie wasn’t up for best picture) and has become iconic. Umpa Loompas, chocolate rivers, gum that tastes like a multi-course meal, Veruca Salt (“I want it now Daddy!”) the word classic was made to describe a movie like this.

#85 The Dirty Dozen (1967)

A classic scene in Sleepless in Seattle is when Tom Hanks and Victor Graber are listening to Rita Wilson tearfully describe the end of an affair to remember. Their response is to mimic her teary description applying the tone to the of the ending of The Dirty Dozen. The scene works in no small part because for men (and certainly some women) of a certain age The Dirty Dozen is a film shorthand, a movie you can bring up and other guys will just get it (The Godfather is perhaps the king of movie shorthands). Guys know about Jim Brown sprinting away and before getting shot in the back, the image means something to them. Guys know that Aldo the Apache from Inglorious Basterds is an homage to Lee Marvin’s Major Reisman. For many years The Dirty Dozen was simply required viewing for any guy between 1967 and 1987.

#84 Casablanca (1942)

#3 on AFI’s 100 best movies list. #6 all time according to the hollywood reporter. Everything I said about Some Like It Hot holds true x10 for Casablanca. I wonder how many people under the age of 40 have ever seen it? Until the mid 1990’s it would pop up on TV all the time as a Saturday Matinee on ABC or TNT’s movie of the week or on AMC when AMC actually was a network focused on American Movie Classics. But I don’t remember the last time I just happened on Casablanca. Its a shame because, obviously it is great, but it is also a movie you can drop into at any moment after you’ve seen it once. It is just full of classic scenes and moments that make you stop and say “ooh, I love this part”

#83 Out of Sight (1998)

I still can’t quite figure out how Out of Sight wasn’t a huge hit. Clooney at the height of his ER fame. Jennifer Lopez when she young and as likable as Jennifer Lawrence right after The Hunger Games. Soderberg. Elmore Leonard when Elmore Leonard was out of nowhere on fire with Get Shorty and Jackie Brown having reminded the world how cool he was. Albert Brooks, Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames still feeling the heat from Pulp Fiction (and before he became the voice of Arby’s). And, most importantly, its a great movie. Clooney has never seemed more like a movie star (ditto for Jennifer Lopez) the chemistry between the two leads is electric, great dialogue, funny story, Out of Sight should be one of THE movies of the 1990’s, but its not … but it should be!

#82 Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

I swear I did not plan this when I created my list. I did not plan that three of the most iconic movies ever would all be in the 80’s. #5 on the AFI list. #26 on The Hollywood Reporter list. Universally #1 or #2 on any and every all-time musicals list (The Sound of Music is the only movie anyone would ever put above Singin’ in the Rain). As I said about Casablanca and Some Like It Hot, Singin’ in the Rain deserves every accolade it has ever received. It is funny, the songs are great, the dancing is amazing, it is a really interesting “Hollywood” movie revealing a lot about the film industry as it transitioned from silent movies to “talkies”. Just a terrific movie.

#81 It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (1963)

Spencer Tracy, Ethel Merman, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Jimmy Durante, Phil Silvers, Dick Shawn, forget the Oceans movies there has never nor will there ever be a movie with the sheer volume of star power that the 1963 comedy classic. I don’t need to explain the plot because you’ve seen people try to remake this movie a million times with a thousand different names and no one has even come close. If you look up “Sheer Silly Joy” you are going to find a picture of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

]]>What Have We Learnedhttps://thefatfilmguy.com/2017/07/05/what-have-we-learned/
Wed, 05 Jul 2017 16:21:03 +0000https://thefatfilmguy.com/?p=517July 4th marks the midway point, more or less, for the summer movie season and the year. That makes today as good a time as any to look back and ask what have we learned, or what should we have learned, so far:

Good Matters, Good Is Making A Comeback

This hasn’t always been the case. It has seemed like the only thing that really mattered for the financial prospects of a film was marketing and the name, and those are still pretty impactful, but we are starting to see those factors mean a little bit less and things like the Rotten Tomato score mean a little bit more. Get Out, a horror movie written and directed by a comedian that focuses on racial issues, should have had no real shot for huge box office success, until it had a 100% of Rotten Tomatoes (it has since dropped to a 99%), then it became the surprise hit of the fall. Baby Driver (96% on Rotten Tomatoes) and The Big Sick(98%) each look poised to far outperform any reasonable expectations for wholly original films with no proven box office stars. Wonder Woman was tracking as a middling superhero flick until the positive reviews started taking over, now Wonder Woman is the biggest female directed movie ever and has a chance to surpass Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man as the highest grossing superhero origin movie ever. Logan, Kong: Skull Island, John Wick Chapter 2, Split, they all saw their box office results grow on the strength of their quality. In fact, of the top 10 box office performers this year only two have received the dreaded rotten tomato (below 60% on RottenTomatoes.com), The Boss Baby and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (more on this movie later), two others received a tomato but weren’t certified fresh (between 60% and 75%) Fate of the Furious and Beauty and the Beast, and the other 6 movies in the top ten are all certified fresh, with 4 of those movies scoring in the 90’s on Rotten Tomatoes.

False Narratives Run Amuck

The narrative of 2017 is sequel fatigue. “Sequel Fatigue” has set in. Pirates, Transformers, Fast and Furious, they all dipped from their predecessors proving the movie going public is getting sick of the same movies from the same franchises year after year. Right? That is the story. Only, here’s the thing, all three of those movies are massive hits outside the United States. F8te of the Furious has grossed over $1 billion outside the domestic market. Pirates is coming up on $550 million outside the US and Transformers, after only two weeks is already closing in on $400 million. For these franchises the US market simply isn’t as important. Even Marvel movies rely more on domestic box office, achieving something close to a 60/40 split from their total box office from international markets and the US, for F8te of the Furious that split is 82/18 and Pirates and Transformers are already at 77/23 splits, with foreign markets still opening. And these movies aren’t alone. The Mummy seemed DOA and a non-starter for a hoped for monster franchise, except it is closing in on $300 million from markets outside the US. XXX: The Return of Xander Cage proved Vin Diesel can’t carry a movie that doesn’t have fast or furious in the title, only it grossed over $300 million internationally. The last Resident Evil barely made a blip on the US box office charts, bringing in a poultry $26 million back in January, and it has a higher world-wide box office take than The Lego Batman Movie on the strength of Resident Evil’s $285 million from international markets. Maybe US audiences are getting a little bored by the constant wave of sequels, but sequel fatigue doesn’t mean anything when places like China are loving our big budget sequels, and from the looks of it they aren’t even close to there yet.

A Mis-Cast Star Is No Longer A Star

This is a bit of a spoiler, so if you haven’t seen The Mummy and you really want to see it “fresh” feel free to skip forward. The Mummy, from a plot point of view, hinges on a question, will the amoral Nick Morton be the good guy, save the girl and defeat the Mummy or will he give into temptation and take the spoils he is being offered to join The Mummy and rule the world. For that choice to mean anything we have to believe that Nick isn’t a hero, we have to think of him as a bad guy so when he becomes a good guy it is a twist. But Nick is played by Tom Cruise, and even if it wasn’t just Tom Cruise playing the part, Tom Cruise was in full Tom Cruise blockbuster mode which means he never, not once, not even for a second felt like a bad guy, a reluctant hero maybe, but never a bad guy. The point is, Tom Cruise was just not the right actor to play the part. I think Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is great and very funny, but is he the right guy to carry a raunchy comedy about lifeguards? Is it really hard to see a backlash coming when you take an iconic piece of Japanese pop culture and make Scarlett Johansen the star? And, do we really think Scarlett Johansen, who I also like quite a bit, is the right person to carry the female version of The Hangover? This is a lesson we keep getting taught, but it still never quite sinks in, movie stars are movie stars when they are in the movies that let them be the movie stars they have become, but when you take them away from the right kind of “star vehicle” they just become famous actors, or worse. It doesn’t matter if it is Jim Carrey in a drama or Will Smith playing a stern father in space, I’m not saying they can’t do it, I’m just saying you aren’t casting the movie star anymore.

Maybe No Raunchy Comedies Are Going To Hit This Summer

Here is how Summer works: First weekend in May you drop a surefire comic book movie hit. That hit carries you through until Memorial Day where you generally see maybe two hits dropped that weekend, one action movie one animated movie. Then, the second to last weekend of June is a Pixar flick. July 4th usually brings another family flick and another big action-movie release. There will be two more weekends in July with big releases (at least one more comic book movie and then something a little more high-brow that still has blockbuster potential) and finally one would-be hit on the second weekend of August that is the last hurrah of the season. In between those points hollywood throws darts expecting to find four things; the R-rated action movie that becomes a surprise hit, the sci-fi movie that becomes a surprise hit, the counter-programming drama that becomes a surprise hit and the raunchy comedy that becomes a surprise hit. Look at the movies released each weekend and you will see a litany of films vying for one of those surprise hit spots nearly every weekend. In many ways the most coveted of those spots is the raunchy comedy, often because there can be more than one. Snatched went for the title, The Rough Night was going for it, The House went for it and Baywatch went for it, none of them got it. All we have left is Girls Trip and Ingrid Goes West, neither of which look like they have a particularly strong shot, and maybe The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which should really fill the R-rated action movie role. This summer may not have it’s The Hangoveror Bridesmaids or Trainwreck or The 40 Year Old Virgin or Wedding Crashers or We’re The Millers.